AMD Sempron Processor 3100+ & ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard for $80 at Outpost.com

[kaborka]

Thanks. I suspect the PCI vidcard I'm using is not returning from S3 standby properly. Are you using a keyboard hotkey to return from standby? -- that isn't working for me, either.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: kaborka
Thanks. I suspect the PCI vidcard I'm using is not returning from S3 standby properly. Are you using a keyboard hotkey to return from standby? -- that isn't working for me, either.

no i was using the power button on the computer

 

[deadken]

Well I swapped the CPU/HS/fan and the Memory into a Asus K8V SE Deluxe I have and they work just fine (F@H right now as a matter of fact...). I will have to check out the RMA procedure @ ECS a.s.a.p.

I was keeping this Asus K8V SE Deluxe as a spare just in case this happened (remember I have two ECS/3100+ combos). I was ready to buy a cheap CPU and put together another rig, but I am glad I didn't and I had it ready for temporary use! BTW: I wasn't even able to get to 9x222 with this board at stock Vcore! Man I have to get back to a Nforce based chipset! The Vcore only has one choice other then stock which is +0.2.

I will have to start looking for a NF4/PCI-E/Socket 754 motherboard (non-ECS, thank you....). That will put me right in line for my next upgrade (be it 939 or AM2). Does anyone know of a good S754 NF4 PCI-E board?

 

[deadken]

I was looking around for a cheap S754 PCI-e motherboard (and I wanted to stay away from ECS since one of the motherboards that I got with this combo has died already...) and I found THIS ALBATRON S754 NF4 PCI-e motherboard for less then $27 including shipping A.M.I.R. I am in for one (I had thought about getting two...) and I have posted it in the Hot Deals section.

I hope that it helps someone who still has a S754 CPU and wants to run PCI-e.

-Ken

EDIT: The ALBATRON does have 2xPCI-e slots, but they are 16x + 4x, apparently that means that you can't run SLI on them, but you can use 2 PCI-e cards together (for multiple monitors I guess).

 

[kaborka]

The ECS nF3-A v1.0A board does seem to have its flaws.
[*]I never could get the onboard nV LAN to work right. It's so slow it's unusable.
[*]The board only responds to the power button, not the keyboard hotkey, to powerup or return from S3 sleep mode.
[*]Sometimes the USB ports don't recognize something's plugged in at powerup. When the USB fails to recognize the mouse after a restart, if I unplug the mouse (MS optical) and plug it into a different port, it gets recognized.

 

[webley]

Add my ECS board (from the Outpost deal ECS k7s5a I believe) to the list of failed boards. Mine suddenly wouldn't post after about 3 months of use and no overclocking. It seemed to be a CMOS error with one checksum error message but most times it wouldn't post and now won't post at all. I reset the CMOS by every method know, (removed CMOS battery and unpludgged power, jumper switch disconnect etc) without success. I think some of many of the ECS boards may be defective. Maybe the ECS outpost combo price was low for a reason.. I finally decided to rebuild the entire 'puter with the best quality components and hope for better days.

I spent the better part of a day on the attempted repair involving at least the following:

CMOS fixes to excess described above,

Tried to flash BIOS but can't as floppy drive isn't even "seen"

Verified power supply has correct voltages,

Verified hard drive will boot on another computer,

Replaced Video card,

Reseated most everything but processor (ram, jumpers,c cards etc),


So I'm off to spend some money on new parts as waranty is over.. Just be careful if you have this ECS board as it may have a tendency to serious acute failure.

Aside from this problem, Happy days to everyone! 🙂

 

[esquared]

.

 

[bamx2]

I purchased one of the Fry's combos last summer with the intention of using it with my extra pc parts to put togeher a cheap system for my kids . I recently got around to putting something together so I way past Fry's 30 return .

The problems -

1. Only one memory slot works only with an old Crucial drr stick ,. My other good Kingston and Centon sticks don't work at all .
2. Sometimes on boot it will get to the memory test but stop not getting to the part about the drives ,
3. When it does get past the mem test and post the drives , I get the (40) floppy error press F1 to continue . There is no floopy disk or cable installed in this system . Floppy is disabled in the BIOS boot sequence menu .
4. Sometimes I can press F1 and could get all the way to Win2k bootup only to have it lockup further in the process .

Updating the BIOS did not help . Neither did a new Antec PSU .

Any suggestions before I give up on this motherboard ? So much for my cheap system ? - Thanks

 

[kaborka]

bamx2: Sounds like you got a lemon. I'm assuming the PCI slots were empty? Did you try a different video card, or a PCI vidcard?

Mine has been working OK, except the keyboard hotkey power on won't work. The board will not boot if the PS2 keyboard power jumper is set to use the +5VSB power instead of the default position. Anyone else have this? I used the ECS tech support webform, but no reply from them. Also, the nV LAN port never worked.

 

[wazzledoozle]

Well my ECS Nforce3-A is still running great 7 months later. I dont know what that guy was saying about the nv lan being too slow to use, works fine for me.

 

[pdo]

I'm using Biostar bios with my ECS NFORCE3-A board and it is running great.

 

[Netopia]

I got the BioStar version of the board and though only a basic board, it seems to be pretty good.

Joe

 

[kaborka]

Originally posted by: wazzledoozle
Well my ECS Nforce3-A is still running great 7 months later. I dont know what that guy was saying about the nv lan being too slow to use, works fine for me.

I had the same problem with the onboard LAN -- useless. It would eventually get an IP addr from the router, but it seemed to be running at about 1 byte/sec. I put in a Linksys NIC.

 

[Netopia]

Oh... I should mention that with the Biostar version, if I even LOAD the ethernet drivers in windows, that's it... no more windows install, not even safe mode! I had to disable the device in the BIOS and have to remind myself NOT to load the nvidia drivers for ethernet.

Joe

 

[bamx2]

The pci slots wre empty. I tried 2 different video cards . I guess it is a lemon. - Thanks for your response .

Originally posted by: kaborka
bamx2: Sounds like you got a lemon. I'm assuming the PCI slots were empty? Did you try a different video card, or a PCI vidcard?

Mine has been working OK, except the keyboard hotkey power on won't work. The board will not boot if the PS2 keyboard power jumper is set to use the +5VSB power instead of the default position. Anyone else have this? I used the ECS tech support webform, but no reply from them. Also, the nV LAN port never worked.

 

[yukit]

My system ran for more than 8 months pretty much continuously as my HTPC. I noticed that system had locked up earlier this week. I could not soft reboot. So I had to kill power to the machine to reboot. It would not get past POST.
I am about to open the case to check things over & clear the CMOS (was mildly over-clocked) to see if that will make the system POST at least. It could be the power supply (Antec Sonata with a stock 380W PS) The good thing is CPU/MB/RAM combo is cheap enough to replace, but data is so much more valuable.

 

[BobDaMenkey]

My motherboard has crapped out as well. Went about the same time my 6800GT in the system went. No ammount of swaping commonents will make the system stop randomly freezing up.

That's what happens when you buy ECS, hah.

 

[yukit]

I was able to POST after clearing the CMOS to get back into my BIOS. After verifying the settings in the BIOS (everything set to default or auto), also verified that POST message about the CPU & RAM is correct. So far so good.
I tried to boot the system, it bluescreened almost immediately during the boot.
I boot memtest CD, it immediately returns a bunch of errors. Could this be my RAM that is fried?
I notice my video card's fan is not working. It is an older ATI card that gets the power from the AGP bus.
I think I have seen enough evidence, time to replace the motherboard.

I could try to RMA, I live close enough to their Fremont office to drive there, but I think I will get a new board.
They probably would not honor the RMA since it was an OEM deal from Fry's.

Choices for 754 with AGP is pretty slim nowadays. What board you guys are using for a replacement?
Abit, Biostar, Asrock or Epox?

 

[Zap]

Well, you need to fix/replace your video card fan, and if your memory gives Memtest errors, then you need to resolve that issue. IMO those won't magically "fix" themselves with a new motherboard, and though an argument can be made for a motherboard killing RAM, I don't think the motherboard has anything to do with the video card fan. 😉

FYI, I don't think you'd get any warranty for it. Fry's only has a 14 day warranty thereabouts, and ECS doesn't deal with end users - though they will for a fee and I hear for free if you complain enough, though YMMV.

ECS Motherboard RETURN (RMA) POLICY

ECS Warranty is offered to direct customers with valid ECS invoice only.

See if you can test your RAM in another motherboard, also test other RAM in the ECS motherboard. For video card fan, there are a few options for $10 or less at various places (SVC.com, Nexfan.com, etc) though base price shipping may be expensive for only one item.